Hey,

First off, my Mexico photos so far are at the end of this post.

Second, the image at the top of blog is of an aerial view of Mexico City as I wanted to show how extremely big this city is and even walking and exploring small neighborhoods are like thousands of cities in themselves (the Metro train that we take moves 3.6 million miles a day!).

We are finishing up our second week of classes here. We learned a lot about the history of Mexico City and the founding of Mexico, which are extremely interesting as you have the old Aztec city (which was built on islands on a lake creating a town of canals), which was then demolished by Cortez who built another city on top of that (in the now dried out lake) and the city is just huge. Also really neat is their recent transformation to
democracy (as they had the same political party in power for 70 yrs) so we’re studying the specifics of that now. We travel to Puebla (3 hrs away, 2nd largest city) this weekend as two of the guys on our trip are from there and are taking us around (but we’ll still be watching the Packers game!). When discussing the Mexican government, our teacher brought up an interesting point asking what are the minimum qualifications to participate in the global economy? This was important for Mexico as it transitioned into a democracy, and he argues that this transition was forced on them so that they would be fit for the global market (foreign investors could trust their businesses there and such). A thought to think about. We also do Friday cultural excursions, including tomorrow to the colonial part of the city (such as The Metropolitan Cathedral, the oldest in Latin America).

I also got the chance to speak to the director of Fundación Cedros, who works with “niños de la calle” (street children) throughout Mexico. He asked if I would teach English at their shelter on the weekends so I am going to be starting that soon. Ojala que (I hope that (derived from Insha’allah, the Arabic phrase for “God Willing”)) will help my Spanish as I help their English.

This will also help in my research of community-based development in Mexico (see the Coady Institute for ways how this type of development is done throughout the world) so if you know of any cool community organizations or people in Mexico City (or Paris or Shanghai for that matter), please let me know. I am also ending all my posts with a link to a talk from ted.com, a site with tons of free talks from some of the world’s best thinkers. In this talk, Lakshmi Pratury discusses the lost art of letter-writing, which my host mother here in Mexico loves to do, and which we should all do more often. It’s ironic as I use a blog to communicate my thoughts instead of sending letters. It makes you ask the question of when was the last time you wrote a letter? Let me know what you think of her talk and send me your address if you want a postcard from here!

Speaking of my host family, it is going great. We live with an older couple in a house that has been in my host mother’s family for hundreds of years and has a dance studio on the first floor (where she taught ballerina since she was 12 and now Salsa is taught there), and I watch Simpsons in Spanish and listen to the Juno soundtrack with my French roommate Jean.

Our host family just told us their funny pet history so here’s a shortened version: neither the husband or the wife can imagine their life without pets. The husband found a turtle 20 years ago (the side of a thumbnail) on the street and put it in his pocket and gave it to his wife in an envelope and said here’s a gift (he later realized there was a pet shop right where he found it). The turtle, Shaka after the Zulu King (as the turtle was a fighter) died a couple months ago, but some funny highlights: it only ate human food (ham, salami, eggs) and would spit up turtle food (seapeople), it climbed out of its tank using the curtain that would blow by it, and their large dog would pick it up by its shell and bring it to the garden. They also had a rabbit and a small dog and since the rabbit was there first, the small dog imitated everything the rabbit did (laid like it, ate the alfalfa they planted for it and other rabbit food). My host father laughs as he says we had to tell our daughter that the rabbit went to the University as the dog ended up killing it. They now have two funny dogs that they found on the street who sneak in our room when they can and won’t leave. I think animals are funny, like us, and I hope you do too.

Hasta luego (see ya),

Nicky

MEXICO PHOTOS SO FAR…

Universidad Panamericana (where I study) and la casa de mi host family (where I live, with two funny dogs)
http://northwestern.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111423&l=66c72&id=2412657

El Zocalo y La Reforma (the busiest street downtown and the center of the city)
http://northwestern.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111496&l=731f1&id=2412657

El Templo Mayor (center of the old Aztec civilization (not an empire we learned, no concept of that) which is the only chunk of the civ left in downtown (the rest was demolished by Cortez) and is now covered by today’s Mexico City)
http://northwestern.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111499&l=04597&id=2412657

Museo del Templo Mayor (Major Temple Museum)
http://northwestern.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111508&l=d2309&id=2412657

Volantes de Papaya (guys flying around a pole with a flute)
http://northwestern.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111582&l=813ac&id=2412657

Museo Anthropologia (One of the best in the world and home of La Piedra del Sol (the Rock of the Sun, many mistake as being the Aztec Calendar, but either way, amazing))
http://northwestern.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2111665&l=76362&id=241265